Have 1TB Home edition, downloaded the 1034 firmware upgrade, stopped all virus checking etc er per instructions, only one WD drive, connected via USB., The upgrade app starts up – listed in task manager as ‘sampleuserapp.exe’ (nice one, guys) – . I expected it to find the drive and then present an ‘Upgrade’ option. Instead, it’s reading or doing something to the drive – (blue light is moving up and down) and this has been going on for nearly 30 minutes now and I am starting to get, well… concerned. The only button says ‘Exit’. I am afraid that ‘Exit’ will leave the drive in a bad state.
Just to follow up in case anyone else experiences the same set of problems. The firmware upgrade ran and ran, I let it go on for 30-40 minutes. The risk was that if it was actually doing something on the drive, and I stopped it prematurely, the disk might be left in a bad state. In the end I stopped it by clicking exit. ‘SampleUserApp.exe’ promptly disappeared. The unit itself was clearly overheating at this point. Whatever the ‘upgrade’ was trying to do at this stage – who knows? – all it achieved was to stress the unit. And then even after the app stopped running, the disk continued to be in the same state – spinning, blue light moving up and down. I pulled the power.
The original problem with the drive is that after being used for a few minutes, it starts to generate event 51 errors, error during a paging operation. After a while the drive just locks up and may even lock the pc up. Strangely though, you can turn it all off, wait for a while, plug it back in, and everything seems fine… for a period of time at least, but then the same cycle starts over again.
Did you follow the instructions on the downloads page? They’re listed below. Also, did you do the update using firewire or usb?
Instructions
IMPORTANT: The following precautions must be performed before applying the firmware update:
The WD My Book Home Edition hard drive must be connected to the computer via USB
WD Anywhere Backup MUST be turned off in the system tray
Apple Time Machine MUST be turned off
WD Button Manager or WD Drive Manager MUST be uninstalled from the system
All AntiVirus software MUST be disabled
All Anti-Spyware software MUST be disabled
ANY and ALL programs that would require drive access during the update MUST be disabled
Failure to perform these precautions may cause data corruption/loss and/or drive failure.
Disconnect all other external drives from the computer except for one My Book Home Edition hard drive.
Ensure that the My Book Home Edition hard drive is connected to a USB port.
Select the file WD_MB_Home_1034_1_03.dmg. Click on the Download button to download the file. Download the file to your desktop.
Double-click on the file named WD_MB_Home_1034_1_03.dmg.
The WD_MB_Home_1034_1_03 Drive Image will be mounted to the desktop.
Double click the WD_MB_Home_1034_1_03 Firmware Updater.
If needed, type in your system password. The firmware updater program will scan the USB bus for any applicable hard drives.
Once found, click on the Upgrade button.
Once completed, the software will indicate that the firmware has been updated and the WD My Home Edition hard drive will shut down automatically. Click on the Exit button to close the utility.
Download and install the latest WD Drive Manager program from our Download Library.
Please remove the USB and power cable from the My Book device. Wait 10 seconds and then connect the power cable and USB cable to the My Book device.
The Operating System should recognize a new device and install drivers automatically. Please follow the onscreen prompts shown reinstall the My Book device.
